VHS Animal Facts From The End
Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I think we sloths are pretty interesting animals. Did you know that I'm an erbivore? All sloths are. It means that we only eat plants, shoots, leaves and sometimes fruit. That's a good diet for slow-moving creatures like me. Leaves are pretty easy to catch. One of my favorite animals is my friend Wartz. He's a red-eyed tree frog. Tree frogs are really great climbers. Yup. Most of them have sticky pads on their feet. And those pads help them climb trees and leap through the treetops. Whoa! Tree frogs sure are amazing. And I think Wartz is the most amazing tree frog I've ever met. Don't you? You know who's a great animal? My friend Burdette. She's a quetzal bird. Whoa! I know that's a big word, but it just means she's a very pretty kind of bird. Hey, did you know that all birds have feathers and that no other animals do? Pretty cool, huh? Burdette loves her feathers. And she should. They sure are beautiful. And useful, too. One of the coolest animals I know is my friend Bob the Anteater. Anteaters are great. Did you know they sleep as much as 15 hours every day? I mean, I love to nap myself but that's a lot of sleep. Aw, and they have a great sense of smell. Hmm. I wonder what smells Bob likes best. Next time you see him, ask him for me, OK? Smooch and Winslow are very amazing animals. They're marmosets. A marmoset is a kind of monkey. Hey, did you know that marmosets like to live with other members of their family? Like their brothers and sisters. No wonder Smooch and Winslow had so much fun sharing a house. Uh, except when Winslow leaves his stuff on the floor of course. Madge is one of the oldest and most interesting animals here in the world tree. Did you know that turtles have been around for millions and millions of years? It's true. The first turtles were around even before the dinosaurs. Now, Madge isn't quite that old, but she has been around a long time. And that's one reason she knows so much about so many things. My friends Smooch and Winslow are two animals who love playing and scampering around the forest. They're marmosets. And marmosets are pretty active monkeys. I bet you seen Smooch and Winslow doing lots of scampering and vine-swinging yourself. Hey, did you know that marmosets travel more than a mile a day with all their fun and games? Yup, that's a lot of ground to cover. Anteaters are very cool animals. Do you remember which one of my friends is an anteater? That's right, it's Bob. Did you know that anteaters mouths are extremely small? Yeah. You can barely fit a pencil in an anteater's mouth. Not that an anteater would want a pencil in his mouth. Luckily, their tongues are long. Really long. So they can stick their way out of their mouths to collect food. I bet those long tongues sure would be good for lollipop licking. What do you think? There are lots of cool things to learn about animals. Like Wartz. Wartz is an amphibian. Did you know that? You're probably wondering, "Hey, what's an amphibian?" Well, an amphibian is an animal they can live both on land and in the water. Do you remember when Wartz had his metamorphosis? He grew from being a tadpole swimming in the pond to a frog they can hop on land. Can you think of another kind of animal that has a metamorphosis? I sure am lucky to have so many interesting friends. Like Oko. Did you know there are some monkeys called howler monkeys who can howl so loud that their calls can be heard almost 2 miles away? Whoa! If you were a howler monkey, you can have quite a long distance conversation. No need for a telephone. You can just open the window and howl to your friend who lives down the street. But I think your mom or dad might ask you to keep it down. Animals sure are cool. Especially turtles like my friend Madge. Did you know that Madge doesn't have any teeth? And it's not because she's so old. Turtles have hard sharp enges in their mouths instead of teeth. And those are what Madge uses to munch her food. She uses her mouth almost like a bird uses its beak. Hey, can you think of one of my friends who has a beak? That's right. Burdette. My friend Bob is an anteater. And that's a very interesting kind of animal. Did you know that newborn anteaters ride around on their mom's back for up to a whole year? Whoa! Now that's what I call 1 long piggyback ride. Can you imagine riding on your mom's back for a whole year? I wonder how she'd feel about that. Do you think you'd like to get a piggyback ride from an anteater? My friend Burdette is one beautiful animal. Burdette's a quetzal bird. And quetzal birds have bright green and white feathers and very long white tails. Oh yeah. And their tails can get two times as long as their whole bodies. Ha! Can you imagine that? When they fly, their tails flow behind them. Quetzal birds like my friend Burdette sure are beautiful. Which animals do you think are beautiful? My friend Oko is a monkey. And we all know he is 1 interesting animal. Did you know that the fastest monkeys can travel through the trees as fast as 30 miles and hour? That's probably as fast as the bus you ride to school. Can you imagine that? Boy, I sure can't. But I'm a sloth and we're pretty slow. Being as fast as a monkey would really come in handy in a race. Wouldn't you like to be fast like Oko? He's a pretty cool monkey. My friend Ick is a fish. Fish are wonderful animals. Very different from mammals like you and me. One thing about fish is that they breathe through gills. Not like the longs you and I breathe with. Water goes in and out of the gills and the gills get the oxygen out of the water. That's the air that fish breathe. Did you know that there's air in water? Well, that's right. There is. Yup, Ick is one interesting animal. As far as animals go, we sloths are about as slow as they get. We won't ever win any races, that's for sure. Unless it's a race to see who's slowest. We're the slowest moving mammals in the world. We even digest our food slowly. Really slowly. It sometimes takes a sloth's a month to digest a meal. That sure is a long time for food to travel through your body. Don't you think? My friend Wartz is a red-eyed tree frog. And they are really interesting animals. Red-eyed tree frogs are so green that when they're sitting on a leaf and they have their big red eyes closed. Well, you can hardly see them. Pretty neat, huh? When an animal can blend in within surroundings, that's called camouflage. Camouflage sure would come in handy in a game of hide-and-seek. Don't you think? Smooch and Winslow are the coolest marmoset monkeys I've ever met. Hey, did you know that baby marmosets are often cared for by their older brothers and sisters? Yup, marmoset families really take care of each other. Hmm. I wonder if that's why Smooch and Winslow get along so well. Hey, what do you think? Would you like to take care of a baby marmoset? I just love learning fun facts about my animal friends. Well, like Ick for instance. He's a fish. Did you know that many types of fish don't sleep? They rest with their eyes wide open and take it easy. But if I were a fish, I'd miss just lying back and taking a good old fashioned snooze. In fact, I think it might be time for a nap right about now. Category:The Adventures of Punky Brewster